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Safe

Being a safe place

 Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear.

Instead of requiring that my kids had to hold my hand in a parking lot, I would park near a cart and put some kids in right away, or tell them to hold on to the cart (a.k.a. "help me push", so a kid can be between me and the cart). And they didn't have to hold a hand. There weren't enough hands. I'd say "Hold on to something," and it might be my jacket, or the strap of the sling, or the backpack, or something.

I've seen other people's children run away from them in parking lots, and the parents yell and threaten. At that moment, going back to the mom seems the most dangerous option.

Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear.


The Big Book of Unschooling
page 67 (71, second edition)
photo by Sandra, on Diwali, in Bangalore
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2013, an update of sorts

My comment when someone had quoted the parking lot paragraph above:
Sometimes I would say "Hold on to something! I'm going to hold on to Marty!" so that it wasn't just a thing 'kids had to do,' but was a safety condition of crowdedness.

Now that I'm older, I still sometimes want to hold on to one of my kids when we're out, but now it's because I'm safer if they help me. Holly has held my hand crossing streets just this year, and she's 21. 🙂 Marty and Kirby have helped me down stairs and off of steep curbs.

It's not just for children.

(I think I'll save this and use it again! 🙂 )

(as that was on 2013-facebook,
it's best to save it here.🙂)

Principles over rules

The main point of "hold onto something" is that the danger of being isolated and small, where cars are moving, is more important than a rule about holding a grown-up's hand. There are ways to be close and safe and attached that are not "holding hands."

When a rules-based environment causes rule-breaking, and failure, or balking and resistance, those things are not safe—not physically nor emotionally.

Be expansive in thinking about safety. That's safer.


Other parts and selections from the longer quote have been used on Just Add Light And Stir. Each photo is a link.


Safety and Trust are closest to this.

Safety


Safe in his Own Home



Online Safety and Unschooling



Safer at home on the couch



Safe from video games

Trust

Trust (Being Trustworthy)



Karen James, on Trust



Respect
a directory page to many good thoughts)



"Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear" is out on the internet, credited to "Sarah Dodd." (The names I'm usually called if my real name fails are Susan or Sharon, so "Sarah" was new.)

That line was an addition for Just Add Light and Stir (the post at the top of this page), to go with a quote from The Big Book of Unschooling. It's all my writing.